This is my Island ...

Soon after most of the stores were off, our party disembarked amidst a war of camera shutters, fervently hoping we would never see the Endeavour again. There were also some land-hungry looks from some of the southbound boys.

Campbell Island lies approximately 375 miles south of New Zealand. It has an area of 42 square miles and two relatively long harbours, both opening to the east. Perseverance Harbour is the largest and main one, and very near the head of this harbour, situated under Mt. Beeman, is the present Meteorological Station. The island in the sun, as it is affectionately known by Met. personnel, has a mean temperature of roughly 40 deg.F., high humidity, and rain over not less than 300 days per annum.

Snow falls in the winter, but does not lie very long, and wind is one of the phenomena that the island would not seem the same without. Several times we were lifted bodily and dumped by an exceptionally strong gust of wind. Waterfalls readily defy gravity, and "flow" straight up into the air from a cliff edge, and one can very easily confuse this behaviour with that of a column of smoke.

However, on the whole, we experienced days usually with uncomfortably strong winds, especially on ridges, cool temperatures and rain, although not necessarily all day. We had three good days, with bright sunshine, warm temperatures and little wind.